


All I Want For Christmas Is You

by LadyPoly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Castiel, Canon Universe, Christmas Fluff, Dean relfecting, Falling In Love, Friendship/Love, Happy Ending, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, References to Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 15:13:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9129955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyPoly/pseuds/LadyPoly
Summary: The storm outside puts a damper on Holiday hunting, but for the first time-- Dean or Sam could care less. It’s all pretty good too, eggnog, decorations, there’s even a tree!The only problem? Dean’s heart is heavier than ever. Can he finally tell Castiel how he feels?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xHaruka17x](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xHaruka17x/gifts).



> My Holiday was insane, I really hope this delivers some canon feels in character for everyone. We had illness and mix-ups and flubs. <3 My apologies, It was supposed to have fluff.  
> As 2016 ends, thank you, everyone who read, commented, kudos, encouraged and helped me through. This fandom continues to give me great joy through the connections these stories and love of SPN we all have, and I hope maybe to meet more of you or share more work over 2017 that just keeps getting better.  
> Be safe guys, <3 you.  
> To freeagentgirl, darling these stories would never happen without you. I love you, you are my rock and my hope for 2017 as we carry on! <3
> 
>  
> 
> Dearest Readers,
> 
> It would appear that not only were several of my works copied and posted as someone else’s and that a few people I trusted have also stolen ideas, images created and scenes.
> 
> Should you compare my stories to something I have not said was inspired by a prompt, or that someone has stolen, in the comments of the story please share it with the link, or the place it was and the writer's name or username. I will do what I can to contact them on my own if I need to. Please do not engage them yourselves. If I need help, I will sound the bat signal ;)
> 
> While I have dealt with the people involved the best I can, with the help of loyal reader’s and friends, I have to ask that you please keep this in mind. In the last several weeks it has become very clear to me that the majority of fanfic writers don't understand plagiarism. Stealing ideas without crediting, borrowing quotes, etc and claiming it as your own-- plagiarism. A form of fraud. You cannot take something blow for blow, change the setting and claim that either. An homage is also not done this way, and if you believe so-- it’s still a form of plagiarism.
> 
> When you cite the fandom, the characters etc, you show that you have given credit for the idea. What the writer does next if not stating a prompt and it’s source is their own. The canon ideas are given credit, the divergent is their own.
> 
> Now sometimes similarities inspired by scenes happen, but there is no reason why a comparison of the two should be clear. There is no reason for one writer’s voice to still be evident if you were inspired by their story while claiming your own idea.
> 
> I want to say this didn’t anger me, or hurt me but it did. It infuriated me and to be honest, I didn’t know if I should continue.
> 
> If I am slower to post things now, it is only due to feeling unsure. I am very sorry.
> 
> All my love,  
> LadyPoly

Dean didn't think the snow had come down this hard since Santa had to get Rudolph to guide his sleigh. It would definitely take magic to get  _ anywhere _ at this point, the powder was piled high and Baby wouldn't stand a chance, not that he wanted to subject her to the storm anyway.   
  
In a way, it was a relief. They'd earned a night off and a cup of 'nog had been calling his name...   
Sam had declared it a blessing, and beamed as he dropped a dusty box that he'd dug out from the back of the storeroom onto the table. The cardboard flaps revealed a mess of decorations inside that Sam proceeded to spend hours draping over every surface he could. 

 

Dean watched, with feet propped up and rum in hand, as the space was transformed into a riot of candy apple red, forest green, and glittering gold. He found himself wishing that despite everything happening between them and their Mom, that she could see the place...   
  
He'd snapped a picture after a moment's hesitation and hit the send button.

 

Cas was smiling in it, something he found contagious, his own lips curling as well. Dean hadn't been able to contain his grin at the bizarre scene--his moose of a brother smiling wide and holding bunny ears behind the angel's head, both their heads glinting with silver strands of tinsel. 

 

Dean wants to frame it.   
  


He stares at it on his phone, once again memorizing the crinkle beside Cas’ eyes, the lines by his lips. Dean tosses the phone away, the hunter rolling his shoulders with a sigh.  An odd feeling sits inside his chest. He isn’t sad, not really, even though he usually is around the holidays. This year he’s just being, slowing down and trying to process everything that’s changed.

 

It’s so much harder than he thought.

 

Everything around him is quiet and festive, and in a way, it worries him that something is waiting to pounce in the dark. They had dinner, played some ancient board game before the rum was half gone and Sam wandered off. Cas disappeared, too, but Dean couldn’t leave the safety of the Library. Instead he’s now prowling around--unsure of what’s got him so unsettled. Pausing, eyeing the space around him, he reaches up to thumb at an object that makes his heart skip inside his chest. 

 

A Christmas Star hovers above him, the one thing Castiel had decided to hang when Sam asked him to hand him items from the boxes. 

 

It spins, the silver painted metal pieces glinting in the low glow of the light around him. Somehow it’s mesmerizing, calming, as he watches it turn clockwise, almost like it’s got a mind of its own.

 

Setting his eggnog down on the large wooden table, Dean adjusts it--makes sure it’s hanging dead center in the middle of everything in the room. He admires his work, flopping into the chair with a sigh. For the longest time, the hunter just watches it turn, reaching a point where it cannot push past the resistance of the wire it’s attached to before slowly turning the other way, like an endless dance of moving forward, then back again. 

 

Just like him. Two steps forward through hell and high water, two steps backward when he hits the wall. He hums into the glass at himself as the creamy taste lingers in the sip he takes.

 

His mind wanders back in the realization, in the silence, toes curling in their white cotton socks as he finds himself thinking of when he met Cas. He recalls the moment he couldn’t deny that somehow, despite it all, he had fallen for the Seraph. The moment he was surprised the world didn’t fall into chaos and destruction because he dared realize he was in love. 

 

There was so much bullshit when he got out of the fire, clawed his way into sunlight--to freedom, or so he thought.  Angels and their dick orders, their ‘holier than thou’ attitude and ‘do this or else’. All the shit with Sam and Ruby, prophets and Lilith. It still makes his skin prickle in anger, his blood beginning to run just a little hotter. Out of all of it though, in all the noise, all the pain and the sickening ache of his chest and stomach…there was always Castiel. The Angel of the Lord who took everything and in a single moment made sure Dean and his entire world were never going to be the same.

 

Everything was going to shit, and really when doesn't it around them? Yet there he was, Castiel, the name almost too big for Dean’s mouth--eyes like the bluest ocean depths, voice like gravel,  always a pitch softer for him, tho, for the man he raised from perdition. 

 

_ The Righteous Man. _

 

How had he not realized it all sooner, that when those full rough lips allowed his words to have life--that Cas had fallen so hard right out of the starting gate and into the mud while everything else ran off ahead. 

 

_ “I would give anything--not to have you do this.”   _

 

Those words, the look in the eyes that Dean had come to believe meant he was as close to faith as he would ever be--they were etched into his damn soul.

 

Dean closes his eyes, goosebumps prickling his skin--swallowing roughly. All those times he prayed, all those times they stood so close, hovering. That was the moment it was all there, suddenly heavy in the room--looming and real.

 

It wasn’t like Dean ever did anything easily, though, and acceptance wasn’t one of his strong suits.  It was the hard way, always--stubborn and stupid as Bobby would say--the way of a Winchester, and for a long time Dean thought that that was the right one, the  _ only  _ way. 

 

_ What's interesting is you guys never really look at each other at the same time. You look at her when she's not lookin'. She checks you out when you look away. _

 

It was something Sam said all that time ago he had shrugged off as teasing way back when he reconnected with Cassie. He was thinking of Cas rather than reading the pages of text when it punched him the gut, rang so true and his face had burned red and he dropped his beer. Bobby barked for him to focus, going for a towel and Sam had tilted his head confused. Dean said he was day dreaming, but the weight of it hovered. All of it crushing, suffocating as his blood ran cold.

 

It wasn’t just Cas who came out of the gate falling on his face, it had been him, too.

 

He started slipping after that, letting his eyes linger when he’d run his fingers along Cas’ tie to fix it or touch his shoulder. There was sometimes things he only ever did with Cassie, like find himself wondering about quitting, even if just for a moment. Teaching Cas how to fish and growing old somewhere far from all the chaos. Lost to the world, making it their own.

 

Dean smiles, running his finger along the rim of the crystal tumblr, would it really be possible? He snorts, shaking his head. He had been so naive once upon a time, but that never stopped a Winchester and it certainly wouldn’t stop him now.

Sometimes the present was just like the past. He’d watch the Angel when he would talk, even early on, finding himself distracted by his lips. Sometimes when Cas was just there, eyes off somewhere far away that Dean would probably never understand, it made him want to reach out and keep him where he should be--with him.

 

Dean lived for those moments, the ones where there was a space of quiet to memorize things about him all over again. His eyes, the colors he never knew existed till he saw them, the hues in his hair, the way his jaw clenched, or even the moments he pondered what those hands would feel like to hold.

 

He did that a lot when he was worried back then that the lights really were going out for Cas, or every time he was convinced that this was gonna be it for himself or them. It’s not something he advertises, or wants to share when he’s scared but he thought of speaking up, even way back then. It had crossed his mind to maybe finally just give in and test the waters, banging the gong together so he would have something rather than nothing if this was really it. He wasn’t afraid of Raphael, he was just afraid he was gonna lose Castiel, and that’s what it always was about. Losing Cas, losing Sam.

 

Yet, Dean was still...Dean. Instead, he covered it with bullshit, with typical bad habits like he always did whenever everything he kept bottled inside got to be too much. He drank away the gnawing pain in the Brothel that he might lose the Angel, and swallowed the small jealousy that crept up, sitting there waiting for Castiel to dive in to heterosexual waters. 

 

Despite the humor that occurred afterwards, the way he had laughed so hard it hurt--he was definitely full of emotions. Dean never did tell Castiel later, or ever--that some of it was relief he hadn’t slept with her after all. 

 

Dean chuckles to himself, the warm sound radiating off the book shelves and walls. The fear on Cas’ face had been funny when the girl lead him away. Cas had been so uptight then, and despite it--had still won him over.

 

Jealousy was a strange thing, though. It helped him accept things, even if only internally, but it definitely didn't change anything as they soldiered up and faced Lucifer and Micheal head on. 

 

That's when Dean knew there was never any going back, but old habits die hard. He couldn’t help it when he had suddenly thought of Cassie and wondered if he could change, if Cas was his do over. Cassie had been right though, even all those years later her words rang true.  

 

_ “Oh. Whenever we get, what's the word....close? Anywhere in the neighbourhood of emotional vulnerability, you back off. Or make some joke. Or find any way to shut the door on me.“ _

 

He was always doing it to Cas--shutting it down when things got too close for comfort. Dean almost slipped once though, emotional about Sam, yelling at Castiel for not trying hard enough. It seemed they always ended up at the same place, stuck between choosing him or choosing Heaven and Dean worried it was never gonna be him and Sam. 

 

That’s when Dean had shown him just for one moment what he was really feeling, driven by the fear he was trying not to show about everything going on around them. One sentence and yet a thousand different meanings all at the same time. 

 

He was so thankful back then…that Cas was still so emotionally stunted and the meanings were lost on him. 

 

_ “You're better than this.” _

 

Sometime after that, Dean had begun to lose count on all the things he had experienced that Cassie was right about. He wonders what she’d say now--about how ridiculous it all is he’s in love again, with another Cas of all things. He ponders the look on her face when he’d have to choke out the words, she was right. 

 

He scoffs to himself, chest hurting just a bit at the thought of her. The hunter wonders briefly if she would like Castiel, if she ever found everything she wanted. 

 

Downing the last of the eggnog like a shot, the rum burning pleasantly-- Dean stretches his limbs from slouching in the chair, tapping his fingers on the table top.  He could write novels with the moments he has tucked away with the Angel, all of them so loud and vivid, like a movie in his head. It’s so obvious now, the version of himself and a Castiel that looked like he dropped in from the hippie days. He’d be lying if he wasn’t just a little bit jealous that they, of all people, got a slice of paradise pie--even if it was only sexually.

 

_ “Don't ever change.” _

 

The moment Cas came back--when he was kneeling in that field and the world stopped turning. When his heart stopped beating. Sammy was just--gone, swallowed whole and Dean was sure someone snuffed everything good in the world out in that solid moment. 

 

Dean’s face falls at the thought of Lisa, mostly Ben. He doesn’t miss what he had, but he misses their happier moments, the ones where Ben looked up to him and made Dean feel like maybe he wasn’t as fucked up as he felt.

 

He wishes, though, someone had stopped him. What the hell had Lisa been thinking?

 

All those nights he rolled away from her, awake between his grief and tears for Sam, shedding tears for Castiel. He texted whole prayers before deleting them. He dreamt of him, sometimes in scenarios he knew would never be reality--but he was with him again, with Sammy, too. 

 

Sometimes he drank to escape their happiness because it had been false and then it would start all over again. Buried in Lisa, trying to push the two away as he hoped being with her would one day be enough. He was willing to try anything to dull the overwhelming broken feeling that not even Sam could fix, had he come back.  

 

_ You’ve got so much buried in there, and you push it down, and you push it down. Do you honestly think that you can go through life like that and not freak out? Just, what, drink a half a fifth a night and you’re good? _

 

Lisa didn’t deserve the shit he put her through, and sometimes Dean was glad life didn’t give him time to dwell on it back then.

 

Leviathans followed that domestic mess pretty quickly--giving Dean a well focused distraction to take his rage out on. Dean had never thought they would have to stop stepping on eggshells, run forever and never find their lives as imperfect as they were again. 

 

Sometimes when Dean thought of them, he was sure they were worse than the Angels had ever been.  Bodies of water, though, still sometimes made Dean’s blood run cold. He loved fishing, but not what they drudged up shit inside his head. 

 

Dean has to breathe through that thought, steady himself. Sometimes he could still see the man disappear under the water, and his dreams used to make him scream for Cas. No matter how hard he swam in them, he could never reach him though, and everytime he’d curl up with that coat and pray harder than he ever had--wishing he’d just come back despite everything that happened. 

 

Dean was sure he’d carry that trench coat for the rest of his life. A reminder of all he’d wasted, should have said and never close the hole inside that whiskey couldn’t fill. A part of him was gone when Castiel left them and he wonders if the Angel ever really knew how many tears were shed into that fabric in an alcohol thick grief when he slid it on.

 

Purgatory. That’s where it turned. That’s where, despite it all, Dean knew that no matter what, no matter how angry, betrayed or heart broken--he was always gonna love Castiel. Was always going to find him and bring him home--back to him. 

 

_ “Cas, buddy. I need you.”  _

 

Dean pours another, straight rum this time, before he raises the glass to the air, licking his lips when Benny comes to mind. He sighs.

 

It was there Dean also learned just how much his heart could break and how hard he had to fight sometimes in his pain not to eat a bullet for leaving Cas behind, even if that’s not how the events worked.

 

Dean balls his fist and stares at the empty glass on the table. So much suffering, and yet Castiel always sacrificed everything over and over again for him. Yet he gave Cas nothing for his efforts at times and it left things open for all the assholes to get in the way.

 

When Cas turned human, when he couldn’t ease up on Sam to just protect Cas like he needed to be…he knew he didn’t deserve Castiel.  When Dean watched his lifeless body slump against the chair, unmoving, lifeless…he would have given up everything, though. He knew how stupid he really had been and the weight of his feelings nearly killed him. Watching Cas die again, it broke something inside of him, the sound of his voice startling when he shouted out,

 

_ “Cas…Cas!”  _

 

It’s the only thing he can’t hate Gadreel for, even now. Dean clenches his jaw, eyeing the clock and letting its familiar tick lower his blood pressure.

 

Naomi, the crypt--Metatron. God. Dean hated those last two more than Lucifer some days. Dean was cold, the ground hurt his knees and yet despite the danger, despite the hurt and the worry she was right and he didn't feel the same way…He totally felt like he deserved that beating, like somehow maybe it made up his mistakes and it would make everything okay. Bring Cas back to them and away from Heaven. 

 

_ “We need you. I need you.”  _

 

He almost slipped, almost said I love you, when he gripped that coat between his fingers hard enough he thought the poor old thing would tear.  Dean almost cried when Cas touched him then…and for one moment he thought there was hope again, for everything--for them.

 

Hope. Dean rolls his eyes, shaking his head. How stupid he was everytime he thought it would be different as he stares at the shelves lined with books and remembers it with things strewn all around, blood pooling on the floor. Castiel refusing to hit him back while a part of him screamed inside, helpless and untouched by the Demon he had become. 

 

The Mark of Cain was by far their toughest ordeal…and the biggest regret Dean ever had. He didn’t deserve the love they gave him--used to save him. Even now sometimes he wondered about where inside of him that Monster had really come from, because it wasn’t all the black eyed bastard’s fault--that much he knew.

 

_ “Maybe you could fight the mark for years. Maybe centuries, like Cain did. But you cannot fight it forever. And when you finally turn, and you will turn, Sam, and everyone you know, everyone you love, they could be long dead. Everyone except me. I’m the one who will have to watch you murder the world. So if there’s even a small chance that we can save you, I won’t let you walk out of this room.” _

 

Dean had nearly lost him, killed him with his own two hands and his love for Cas almost didn't prevent it. It was a chilling realization, just how close Dean really came to not being able to combat the rage that he buried inside with the love he protected in his heart.

 

You'd think that would have done it, knowing Cas loved him, to go against his nature and let him murder the world, to still be with him despite it--knowing he almost killed him. He wishes it would have finally made him spit it out. It still wasn't, and Dean will always regret it no matter what Castiel says now. 

 

Lucifer made him a mess. If there were things Dean buried away and thought he could forget about towards Castiel, that had definitely drudged them up and hit him like a freight train. Problem was, he wasn’t Superman--that train ran him over without a moment's hesitation, wide open and bleeding.

 

Even when he stood there, more than just his usual fucked up self, maybe more fucked up than ever if he was being honest and screamed his name despite Amara’s influence--even Dean couldn’t believe that somehow it was still all about Cas. He just wanted to say he was sorry, that he was wrong. His stupidity had driven Castiel into Lucifer's arms and Dean had been sure he was never going to get him back, never going to get to finally say anything. To prove once and for all, Castiel was not expendable, never by him.

 

Dean swallows the lump in his throat. Shudders even despite the warmth around him as the cold feeling inside him passes. That feeling is still raw sometimes and Dean rubs at his sternum as he chokes it down. He wishes he could change it. Sometimes he even dreams about it, screaming for Castiel and hearing Lucifer’s laugh echo around him. Never getting him back.

 

Cas has no idea what it feels like now to wake up knowing he’s right there, unmoving--watching. Solid, warm and real. Dean wonders what he’s doing as he’s drifting inside his head, retracing the road so far. 

 

In the movies people say things they always should have when they're about to die. He thought that would be him as they climbed into Baby, as his heart soared knowing Cas was once again with him, alive and that the light--his faith was once again lingering in those eyes of baby blue.

Instead the image of Castiel in that passenger seat would haunt him for the rest of his life when he told him he was just his brother. His eyes were focused out the window, and everything about him made Dean wish he was better with words. He had tried to make him realize he was needed even when Dean knew it wasn't what he wanted or needed to hear.

 

The most painful part though was leaving him behind. Letting him go when all he wanted to do was hold him close and pretend things were different. Telling Cas not to come with him even though it was so obvious right there and then that they weren't going to say what they were both thinking…Dean had hoped when he held him close that one last time maybe, just maybe Cas knew. 

 

These were the moments now he would never stop apologizing for, never forgive himself for… and always remember so that he never stopped trying for Cas,  _ for them _ . After all Dean had finally started to get it right. 

 

It didn’t happen in some dramatic showdown, a be all and end all--because that just had never worked, so why would it work now? Their moment wasn’t during some fight, or heated argument. Hell, there wasn’t even booze involved, much to his and Sam’s surprise.

 

They were discussing a book Cas was reading, Dean tucking away washed socks in the drawer. It was so domestic, so unlike the way he was used to.

 

The Angel had turned the book from where he was sitting stretched out on Dean’s bed as he leaned over to see what he was pointing at. Dean doesn’t even know the name of it now, or what it was about. It had smelled old though and Cas looked so normal in a black faded Zeppelin shirt, so right where he should be. Smelling of linen, of Dean and the smell that made Cas--well, Cas.

 

One minute Cas was talking, voice soft and growly, the next Dean was watching his lips move like all those years before. He missed whatever it was he said, the world sort of falling away like it sometimes did when he took the moments like this to admire him. Maybe it was a few seconds, minutes, he really doesn’t know now.  He was just suddenly tasting them, pressed into them like his life depended on it and Castiel returned it with everything he could. He faintly remembers ruffled pages and thump when the book fell somewhere to the floor.

 

Dean had pinned Cas into pillows as he gave in, crawling ontop of him, their legs sliding together. It was easy, he had realized, once it started, and never in all his years had Dean felt such a rush. His hand was cupping the Angel’s face as the metal on his ring was cold against his blushing cheeks. It felt like it was made to rest there, to cradle him as their noses bumped and they shared the same breath. Cas’ hand was buried in Dean’s locks of sandy colored hair, the other gripping the spot on his arm as if it was all that was keeping him whole.

 

It never seemed to end, and every moment between them suddenly felt dull in comparison. Out of everything Dean had gotten the pleasure of experiencing in his lifetime, the moment he saw Cas’ face, eyes a color he was sure didn’t exist for shades of blue--nothing was more precious than what he saw that day. Especially when Cas blinked away tears and Dean wiped them away, worried the ones in his own would mirror the gesture. 

 

It still leaves him breathless even now--alone amongst the low light and mahogany shelves of dusty pages. His fingers ghost along his lips, barely brushing them as the heat forms beneath his collar. He admires the star a moment more, grasping the feeling such a memory possesses. 

 

It has to be tonight or Dean will never forgive himself, he has to tell Castiel how he really feels or it’s just going to be another long list of things he regrets. 

 

Dean can’t live with more regret. Not now, not about Cas. 

 

“Dean?”  The hunter turns, butterflies erupting inside of him as he turns to see the Angel standing against the bookshelf, watching him. 

 

“Heya, Cas,” his voice is low, soft, as he takes the man in behind him. He’s dressed differently, a habit formed of late and in a pair of Dean’s worn faded jeans. They’re the ones with a hole in the knee that were gathering dust till Cas nabbed them. They fit Cas like a second skin, showing off the power in his legs, relaxed enough to be comfortable, hanging low on his hips. The man is beautiful, and somehow even the most perfect woman would honestly pale in comparison. Dean’s eyes rake up the exposed skin on Cas’ upper torso, the first half of the buttons laying open. It was a serious injustice to hide all that lean, powerful muscle with clothing, especially when he sees it like this. 

 

There was something about the red plaids Cas seemed to favor now, always rolled up to his elbows--making him look like he rolled in sunshine and came out with the most perfect shade of gold. Dean soaks him in, from the tips of messy tossed chocolate locks, down to the bare feet he somehow has a thing for now, (who knew he’d be into feet) before meeting the heavy, studying gaze of cerulean blue eyes. 

 

“I felt your longing. Are you okay?”

 

Dean scoffs, running a hand through his hair as the smile breaks out across his face. Castiel tilts his head, waiting for an answer but eyes so full of curiosity. They catch the shimmering lights of the sparkling tree in the corner and Dean’s lungs forget to inflate. Sometimes he wonders if he’ll die before he ever sees everything there is about his newly found love, struck down by the beauty Cas seems to have and is ever growing. When Cas smiles, raising an eyebrow at the pause in his response, Dean goes weak in the knees. 

 

“Ya…I’m fine, Cas, just--thinking.”  

 

He gives Cas a reassuring half smile, leaning heavily into the table for support as the Angel moves towards him. Dean finds his hand raises, reaching out as Cas takes it, steady, with confidence as they melt into one another and Dean captures him in a kiss much like the one he was recalling. It’s soft, warm, comforting and his entire chest explodes like fireworks all over again, like the first time. The kiss is slow, drawn out and gentle when they break so Dean can breathe.

 

Dean rests his forehead against Cas’ chest raising up and down. They lean into one another as his other hand finds Cas’ fingers tangled with his own. From where their standing, he can hear the snow hitting the windows, above them--the wind howls. Dean could stay snowed in here with Castiel like this forever. 

 

In the glow of the tree, the Christmas Star above them, still spinning endlessly like the thoughts of Cas--close together and safe...it feels hard to ignore the feeling growing between them anymore. Dean wants to unwrap Castiel like the world’s most precious gift, not just his own-- and to give him the only thing worth any value that Dean has. Himself. He wants Cas to claim everything, mind, body and soul. Take them both apart and build them back up as one, and maybe finally once and for all close the wounds and cracks in each other’s hearts, everything between them left behind.

 

Dean has never felt anything like he has now…and suddenly he can’t help but give into the feeling he wishes he had long before now. 

 

“Cas?” his eyes are still closed, breathing in deeply when he feels Cas pull away to look at him. Opening his eyes, Cas studies the face just that little bit above him, the hunter’s eyes dark as pine needles--like the ones on the Christmas tree. 

 

“What is it?”  he asks, face full of worry as Dean swallows nervously at those words, a flash in his mind of the barn. The lights sparking, the look that haunted him right to his soul when he had said those words the first time and turned his whole world on its head.

 

_ “What is it?” So soft, so focused on him. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved?” _

 

“I love you.” 

 

It’s choked, caught in his throat but he squeezes Cas’ hands in his own--desperately, soaking in the Angel’s presence once more, giving him the courage to say it again, louder this time, “I love you, Castiel.” 

 

“What?” 

 

It isn’t the reaction Dean was expecting, the man before him stepping back--eyes of stormy cerulean wider than he’s ever seen them. Dean stops breathing, holding his breath as Cas pulls one hand away from him, his whole face falling to a spot somewhere on the floor between them. 

 

Castiel suddenly feels off center, ambushed and confused. He blinks rapidly, brain reeling as he processes--everything inside of him twisting in nervous knots and bursting like popcorn kernels. 

 

The whole universe goes silent, not a single sound as he processes what’s occurring. He hears nothing, detached from himself and his grace.

 

Dean frowns, hesitating to reach out--afraid of rejection. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. “Cas?”

 

With blurred vision, memories that once gave him the same feeling tightens his throat.

 

_ “I’d rather have you, cursed or not.” _

 

_ “I need you.”  _

 

Castiel always thought himself a fool for wondering, day dreaming helplessly that there was always more to those words.

 

Still, all those years of waiting--praying despite his species, he always wanted this--wanted Dean. He could have spent his life content with what they shared now, their embraces, their deep kisses. His heart was full lying in bed, watching Dean sleep and holding hands in morning twilight. Never did Castiel ever expect this, and now that he has it, it’s both exciting and terrifying.

 

Closing his eyes, Cas tries to control the shaking in his free hand. A part of him cannot help but wonder--will the world implode? Does everything go away if he says it back? The beating of his vessel’s heart, the sweating on his palms suggests it’s possible.

 

“I love you, too.” So quiet, voice trembling as the first tear falls down Cas’ face.

 

Never in all the times their bodies have met, has Dean held him as close as he does now. Cas slides his arms around Dean’s lower ribs, gripping his shirt in his fists, holding on like if he lets go--everything ceases to exist. Ironically enough, Dean holds him the same way, lips pressed into Cas’ temple as he closes his eyes and burns this moment inside of himself.

 

“I love you,” Cas says again, breath in Dean’s neck, “I love you, Dean.” 

 

Dean’s fingers slide into Cas’ hair, skin flushing red as his freckles stand out. He finds the other side of Cas’ neck and mirrors him,“I love you, Cas” 

 

The world stops turning, at least that’s how it feels to Dean in the glow of the tree and quiet around them. He closes his eyes, three little words setting free so much of what he’s been burying inside of him. He can feel Cas’ tears caught in the collar of his shirt--and it’s precious, wonderful and perfect. 

 

It’s the best chick flick moment ever.

 

“I believe it’s tradition to kiss now,” Cas murmurs, and Dean blinks softly before looking above where Cas is standing.

 

Mistletoe. How had he not seen it near the star?

 

Dean sighs, smiling as he takes in Cas’ face, baby blue eyes sparkling in the glow of yellow lights. He cups the side of his face gently. Castiel is--beyond beautiful and breathtaking.

 

Castiel relaxes as they connect--full of everything without anymore fear and it’s honestly, probably the most single amazing moment of Dean’s adult life, again as Castiel feels his grace flutter and burn more intense than it ever has.

 

“Merry Christmas, Cas.”  

 

Castiel closes his eyes, humming contently. He has honestly never felt as good as he does now, not even when Father would praise him and stroke his wings or when Gabriel would walk with him in Heaven, making him feel special when the other Angels pushed him around. 

 

“Merry Christmas, Dean.” 

  
Dean smiles and pulls Cas close again. He kisses his forehead and Cas nuzzles in close. He never wants to lose this, never wants to let him go. So he doesn’t, and neither does Castiel as they sway together much like the star that hangs above them.  


End file.
